Been reading and thinking about Elon’s team catching that rocket in midair. See this…
While everyone acknowledges that it’s a marvel of science and is that tiny step for a team that would mean a giant leap for humanity, the event did a lot more for me.
It has thrown my thinking about life and all in turmoil. I have way too many, too conflicted thoughts. Here’s an unfiltered, unedited brain dump.
If I slay some sacred cows, I am guilty.
If I ruffle some feathers, I am guilty.
I am in a funk and I need some shocks to get out.
Would appreciate some feedback and inputs.
Let’s go…
1/ Is Paul Graham’s founder-mode really a good place to operate from? What if the cost of human progress is to be not-nice to others?
Context – I’ve been nice all my life and I have nothing to show for that. This is when most of my idols have been not-nice to others (Steve, agency guru, etc) and have been very mission, outcome and outcome oriented capitalists! The nice ones that I follow have been mild successes at best. The wild ones are the ones that were not so nice. So there’s some anecdotal evidence there.
With C4E, I had set out to build a culture-first, nice place and almost 4 years in, we are still not close to any sort of success. We struggle to meet our payroll each month. People are happy but the org is not thriving.
May be I need to shift my stand and let niceness and humanness and culture go to hell and do whatever it takes to go win.
Assuming I can do that!
Assuming I have it in me to be unkind to people to get things done.
May be I should accept that I will never be a wild success and go sell stupid courses on Topmate 😀
2/ Do I double down on respecting the art and ignore the artist?
Context – I am often able to abstract the outcome from the people who make it happen (most of Bollywood and agency business is that in the first place). I try to spot lessons even in the worst personalities. With this rocket (live streamed via his Starlink!), and my money to get Twitter premium and my want of getting a Tesla some day to my admiration for his speed with xAI and my fascination with neuralink and many more “signs” (see Huang talk about Elon, couple it with Munger talking very briefly about Elon), do I index more on output, progress? Or do I continue to be nice? And accept that I will never be successful and all that? And get that topmate account 😀
3/ Do I stop investing in people? And get mission-oriented, project-oriented, money-oriented, outcome-oriented only?
I often think of myself as Karna and Yudhisthir – an irrational fool when it comes to giving, even to strangers. And in the case of loved ones, give while harming self. And all this giving and investing has happened only because I am long-term greedy. I have hoped that today am ok to live like a pauper and have others live like kings so that tomorrow, it will be a king-like life for all of us and more. You know, compound.
But in life, I’ve seen that when I need people, they, sort of, don’t show up. I understand that they are not obligated to. But even the basic “am with you” narrative changes once they get into ivory houses and look down at my rundown tent with disgust and indifference.
I can’t forget a time a couple of years ago when I was down to my last 500 bucks and despite knowing this, my best friends called me for a rando party at some shady bar where we paid crazy money for alcohol that I anyway dont drink. After that incident, I didn’t commute to even meet clients cos I didn’t have the money on me. And I have stopped going to parties with that group unless there’s M.
No, I am not sore.
I am merely old. Lol.
No jokes apart, I write this with equanimity and I know life and things and people change. I haven’t stopped investing in people. I haven’t stopped supporting whoever I can. I know I am being taken for a ride and I play along. If I can be that ladder that they can use to get ahead, why not? Life is supposed to be grand for all of us. There’s so much magic around us. Abundance!
Again, I am not complaining about people and the change. I am merely saying that I’ve lost business, opportunities, money and more importantly time by being nice.
Do I stop being nice and start being a bitch?
Or accept that my fate is that of a failed coach who sells courses?
4/ Do I have it in me to take a shot at grandness?
This is the most important one. Do I have it in me to even take a shot at greatness? A classmate (he’s not a friend) from MDI Gurgaon told me some 10 years ago that he had accepted that he would never be a CEO and thus he will do whatever he can to get a great life.
Today, he and his family are in the US, and have an easy life of a Silicon Valley DINK executives (last I checked, his wife leads HR for THE payments company of the internet).
Should I just accept that I will never be the one to make that ding in the universe? I will never send those rockets up there and catch them. Wait, I dont even want to send rockets up there. Lol. I am not inspired by space as the space. I’d rather make life beautiful, engaging, full of experience and better for people here or wherever we are. Mind it – not happy. But engaging and all.
The thing is, Elon’s solving for survival and making us interplanetary. I was and I want to solve for us living “better” – you know, the one where you are free, have the freedom to do whatever. And you choose what is life for you – you could be like my friend (who wants it easy and is going for hikes and runs and pickleball and concerts and holidays and all) or you could be like me (always on a treadmill and remain unidimensional about work and all) or anywhere along this spectrum.
You choose.
Ok, and thanks to this vagueness, I dont know what the output would look like. And thus the fuckery.
5/Maybe I will stop talking about the ding and find my tiny little hamlet where we make a better life for people who choose to be there.
You know the village.
Where we invite nice people to live AND work with us. We create something that people really value and are willing to “give their lives” for – both for creating and consuming. I can think of people like DHH (and Basecamp), Shashank (the creator of The Whole Truth), impact investors (maybe – I have a very cynical view of impact as the space) and others.
These people are at the right intersection of things – build “good” things that they love to build, create a “free” life, sell to a LOT of people on their terms, and care deeply for their customers (to a point that they’d shift business strategy if they hear a lot about it) and continue to chase and optimise for personal growth.
Some of these people find balance.
Some remain on the treadmill.
May be that’s the way to go for me?
May be I need to double down on C4E Labs?
That will mean I move to Ahd.
I dont know if I want to go there 😀
TBH, apart from the location constraint, nothing stops me from pivoting to C4E Labs. At least I would have the freedom to create things that I want to. And hopefully, at scale! And I would be living around nice people who do nice things for the world at large to live a nice life!
The trouble is, this would mean quitting C4E in its current form – and at a time when things seem to be looking better for us – we have some reputation, some clients, some really engaged, great people doing great work with our tenets of reliability. We are looking at expanding the team and getting more clients. Etc etc.
Or maybe I can run the two. I dont know. What if I run both into the ground? But then this is also not akin to making a ding. This is at best a good compromise for the failed attempts at making dings. If not C4E Labs, maybe find something like what Tons Valley Shop team is doing.
However, there’s no product that I am uniquely passionate or excited about.
Maybe something in the health space?
Lately, I’ve been invested in that – thanks to work. I had a co-founder opportunity that I let go cos I didn’t align on vision and people. If Elon had caught that rocket earlier, I would’ve probably joined it 😀
I have a founding team opportunity that I will get closure on either today or tom. It will still not be a ding but it will solve for problems at scale.
The best part is that if it pans out, C4E would benefit. And it would be a nice thing where I don’t need to be in the founder mode :D.
So may be that?
If not for Labs, I can even think of faith-based orgs. You know, churches, temples, Hare Krishna etc. Faith becomes paramount and everyone is happy. No, I can’t create this. At best, I can think of Vipassana folks.
But no. HARD NO!
So that.
Ok, I have vomited a word salad.
PS: I first wrote this on Twitter / X.
Now that I’ve written. Must write more.
I know that I need to move on from people-first.
I also know that I may not be project-first.
I also know that I will need to find a “compromise” I probably need to unlearn a lot and learn more lots.
At 42.
Sigh!
Chalo onto work.
Oh and disclaimers. This really is an unfiltered stream of thoughts. This is unedited. This is not how I would publish a lot of things. But living in public, FTW!